Types | nonprofit organization |
---|---|
Legal status | 501(c)(3) organization |
Country | United States |
Revenue | 16,129,078 United States dollar (2018) |
The Near East Foundation (NEF) had its genesis in a number of earlier organizations. As the scope of relief expanded from aid to Greek, Armenian and Assyrian victims of the Ottoman Empire to post-World War I relief in the region, the names and mission changed. The inception was as the American Committee on Armenian Atrocities, [1] followed by American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (ACASR), then American Committee for Relief in the Near East (ACRNE), before becoming Near East Relief in August 1919. [2] [3] In 1930 as the relief work diminished and development work expanded, the organization reorganized as the Near East Foundation.
Today the NEF is a Syracuse, New York–based American international social and economic development organization.
The NEF is the United States' oldest nonsectarian international development organization and the second American humanitarian organization to be chartered by an act of Congress. Near East Relief organized the world's first large-scale, modern humanitarian project in response to the unfolding Armenian and Assyrian genocides.
Known as the Near East Foundation since 1930, NEF pioneered many of the strategies employed by the world's leading development organizations. In the past 100 years NEF has worked with partner communities in more than 40 countries.
NEF is an operational non-governmental organization with projects in Armenia, Jordan, Lebanon, Mali, Morocco, the West Bank, Senegal, Sudan, and Syria. In these countries, it works with disadvantaged social groups including people coping with conflict, displacement, exclusion, and climate change. The organization focuses on three program areas that are aimed at addressing development challenges in the long-term: peacebuilding, sustainable agriculture and natural resource management, and microenterprise development. It is structured to work with local partners to deliver services. NEF's partners include local and international non-governmental organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors, foundations, financial institutions, and government ministries.[ citation needed ]
The earlier organizations began in response to Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr.'s 1915 reports of governmental atrocities against Ottoman Armenians. Morgenthau referenced the deportations of intellectuals and requested urgent and immediate assistance. Former missionary and educator James Levi Barton and philanthropist Cleveland Hoadley Dodge led a group of prominent New Yorkers in forming the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, each with personal connections to the Near East. [4]
The committee raised $60,000 for direct relief at its first meeting on September 16, 1915. The money was wired to Ambassador Morgenthau for distribution by William Summerill Vanneman, the chairman of the committee in Tabriz, Russia. Cleveland H. Dodge personally financed the committee's operating expenses in order to ensure that all funds went to direct relief.
The committee then embarked upon an unprecedented grassroots campaign to raise money and awareness across the United States. The campaign combined striking imagery, passionate celebrity spokespeople, and captivating stories from the field to inspire Americans from all economic backgrounds to become citizen philanthropists. The organization briefly used the name American Committee for Relief in the Near East in 1918–1919 as seen on many of the committee's iconic posters.
In August 1919, the committee received a congressional charter (the second humanitarian organization to receive this recognition, after the American Red Cross) and was renamed Near East Relief.
From 1915 to 1930, Near East Relief saved the lives of over a million refugees, including 132,000 orphans who were cared for and educated in Near East Relief orphanages.
Near East Relief mobilized the American people to raise over $116 million for direct relief. Nearly 1,000 U.S. citizens volunteered to travel overseas.
Near East Relief workers built hundreds of orphanages, vocational schools, and food distributions centers. Overseas relief workers were responsible for the direct care of orphans and refugees, including the organization of vast feeding and educational programs. Thousands of Americans volunteered throughout the U.S. by donating money or supplies and hosting special events to benefit Near East Relief's work.
The Golden Rule Sunday
The organization created the International Near East Association, which then dedicated Sunday, December 2, 1923, as an International Sunday of the Golden Rule. The "Golden Rule Sunday" as it became known, encouraged people to eat something simple—namely staple menus typically served in orphanages—and offer the money they saved as a donation to the orphans of the Armenian Genocide. The Sunday of the Golden Rule was celebrated in many parts of Europe, Australia, and America. President Calvin Coolidge urged the American people to express a spirit of sacrifice and generosity on December 2, 1923, as part of the larger philanthropic effort. [5]
In 1930, Near East Relief was renamed the Near East Foundation (NEF) [6] to reflect the organization's shift in focus from emergency relief to long-term social and economic development. NEF expanded its geographic focus to include North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and the area now known as the Middle East.
NEF launched the Near East Relief Historical Society [7] in 2014 in an effort to preserve and share the organization's history.
The relief effort that launched the organization in 1915 was the first broad national appeal of its kind to solicit funds from the American public, and it was unique in its use of media outlets and support from celebrity spokespeople and citizen volunteers alike. This effort grew and gave birth to what is now known as "citizen philanthropy"—appealing directly to the public to support humanitarian work overseas. This model of philanthropy is used today by a majority of non-profit organizations around the world.
When NEF established the practice of working in tandem with foreign governments and local organizations to improve the lives of citizens, it was nearly unprecedented. NEF has since provided the model for many of today's well-known development organizations, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps. It has also left a legacy of enduring development institutions it had helped create that continue as centers of innovation and service, including the American University of Beirut's Faculty of Agriculture and Food Science, American University in Cairo's Desert Development Center, Agricultural College of Rezaiye and Ahwaz Agricultural College in Iran, Center for Development Services in Egypt, and dozens of others. As an example of its legacy, one of the oldest basketball teams in Greece, Near East B.C. took its name in order to honour the foundation, since it helped Greeks refugees after the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations.
In 2010, the Near East Foundation moved its headquarters to Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. At Syracuse University, NEF engages faculty and students in its international development work through strategic partnerships with the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and the Whitman School of Management. NEF works frequently with experts in the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration.
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children.
Henry Morgenthau was a German-born American lawyer and businessman, best known for his role as the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Morgenthau was one of the most prominent Americans who spoke about the Greek genocide and the Armenian genocide of which he stated, "I am firmly convinced that this is the greatest crime of the ages."
The Armenian General Benevolent Union is a non-profit Armenian organization established in Cairo, Egypt, in 1906. With the onset of World War II, headquarters were moved to New York City, New York.
The occupation of Western Armenia by the Russian Empire during World War I began in 1915 and was formally ended by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It was sometimes referred to as the Republic of Van by Armenians. Aram Manukian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was the de facto head until July 1915. It was briefly referred to as "Free Vaspurakan". After a setback beginning in August 1915, it was re-established in June 1916. The region was allocated to Russia by the Allies in April 1916 under the Sazonov–Paléologue Agreement.
Armenian resistance included military, political, and humanitarian efforts to counter Ottoman forces and mitigate the Armenian genocide during the first World War. Early in World War I, the Ottoman Empire commenced efforts to eradicate Armenian culture and eliminate Armenian life, through acts of killing and death marches into uninhabitable deserts and mountain regions. The result was the homogenisation of the Ottoman Empire and elimination of 90% of the Armenian Ottoman population.
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response is a book written by Peter Balakian, and published in 2003. It details the Armenian genocide, the events leading up to it, and the events following it. In particular, Balakian focuses on the American response to the persecution and genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire from 1894 to 1923.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918) is the title of the published memoirs of Henry Morgenthau Sr., U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, until the day of his resignation from the post. The book was dedicated to the then U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, and it took over two years to complete. The ghostwriter for Henry Morgenthau was Burton J. Hendrick; however, a comparison with official documents filed by Morgenthau in his role as ambassador shows that the book must have been structured and written extensively by Morgenthau himself.
Anipemza is a village in the Ani Municipality of the Shirak Province of Armenia. The Statistical Committee of Armenia reported its population was 523 in 2010, up from 349 at the 2001 census.
Harut Sassounian is an Armenian-American writer, public activist and publisher of The California Courier which is known for Sassounian's weekly opinion column. He served for 10 years as a non-governmental delegate on human rights at the United Nations in Geneva.
Schneller Orphanage, also called the Syrian Orphanage, was a German Protestant orphanage that operated in Jerusalem from 1860 to 1940.
Maria Jacobsen was a Danish missionary and a key witness to the Armenian genocide. Jacobsen wrote the Diaries of a Danish Missionary: Harpoot, 1907–1919, which according to Armenian genocide scholar Ara Sarafian, is "documentation of the utmost significance" for research of the Armenian genocide. Jacobsen is known as "Mayrik" or "Mama" for her humanitarian efforts and having saved many Armenians during the genocide.
Witnesses and testimony provide an important and valuable insight into the events which occurred both during and after the Armenian genocide. The Armenian genocide was prepared and carried out by the Ottoman government in 1915 as well as in the following years. As a result of the genocide, as many as 1.5 million Armenians who were living in their ancestral homeland were deported and murdered.
Ernest Alfred Yarrow was a Christian missionary and a witness to the Armenian genocide. He is also known for his leadership of a relief effort carried out by the Near East Foundation that saved and cared for tens of thousands of Armenian refugees.
The Gomidas Institute is an independent academic institution "dedicated to modern Armenian and regional studies." Its activities include research, publications and educational programmes. It publishes documents, monographs, memoirs and other works on modern Armenian history and organizes lectures and conferences. The institute was founded in 1992 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It is based in London and maintains a United States branch in Cleveland. British-Armenian historian Ara Sarafian serves as its executive director. Since 1998, the institute has been publishing a quarterly journal titled Armenian Forum. The institute is named after Komitas.
Nellie Miller Mann was an American secretary in the Near East Relief (1921-1923), and a Sunday school teacher in a Mennonite Church in Indianapolis.
The Armenian Orphan Rug, also known as the Ghazir Orphans' Rug, is an Armenian styled carpet woven by orphans of the Armenian genocide in Ghazir, Lebanon. The carpet took eighteen months to make and was eventually shipped to the United States where it was given to President Calvin Coolidge as a gift in 1925. It was returned by the Coolidge family to the White House in 1982. Its most recent public display was in November 2014 at the White House Visitors' Center as part of the exhibition "Thank you to the United States: Three Gifts to Presidents in Gratitude for American Generosity Abroad".
Sara Corning was a Canadian nurse from Nova Scotia and humanitarian in the Mediterranean during the Greco-Turkish War who established orphanages for Greek and Armenian children.
They Shall Not Perish: The Story of Near East Relief is a film about Near East Relief (NER)'s efforts to counter the Armenian genocide. Shant Mardirossian, the chairperson emeritus of the organization, produced it, doing so through the company Acorne Productions. The writer and director is George Billard. Victor Garber serves as the narrator. A slogan on a NER fundraising poster was used for the film's name.
On 24 May 1915, on the initiative of Russia, the Triple Entente—Russia, France, and the United Kingdom—issued a declaration condemning the ongoing Armenian genocide carried out in the Ottoman Empire and threatening to hold the perpetrators accountable. This was the first use of the phrase "crimes against humanity" in international diplomacy, which later became a category of international criminal law after World War II.
William Summerill Vanneman was an American medical missionary. From the fall of 1890 until his death, he worked as a physician in Tabriz, Iran for the Presbyterian mission. Vanneman was appointed as chairman of the relief committee in Tabriz during the Armenian genocide and the Persian famine of 1917-1919. He was awarded the Order of the Lion and the Sun in 1896 by the Shah of Persia.